We'll Remember You
by fidelis5588
Summary: An aged, dying Buffy writes a letter to her lover, Angel, whom she's not even sure is real anymore. implied Spangel


_**A/N: This is yet another product of a fleeting attack by a much beloved, but viscious muse. Please come back! **_

**_Oh, and I CRAVE reviews, so please leave me a message!_**

_**Warnings: Impiled Spike/Angel slash.**_

**_We'll Remember You_**

'_I don't even remember if you're real anymore, it's been so long. _

_Sometimes I remember it all so clearly; the ghost of your lips along my skin. Your cold fingers working over my shirt, deftly slipping the smooth, round buttons out of the holes. I remember it and there is no doubt, for one clear second, no doubt. _

_But for the most part, I can't remember. I can't remember you anymore. I usually write those rare, vivid moments of clarity off as lucid daydreams. Products of the medicine. Yet even so, I can't shake this feeling._

_I don't remember what your favorite color was, or if you liked summer or winter best. I have no earthly idea how we met, or if you got along with my friends. Willow and Xander are distant memories now too. I only vaguely recall Xander's last name, and Willow's face is a little fuzzy around the edges when I think of her. They visited me, last year. But I haven't seen them since. They're old now too. _

_I never thought to tell anyone that I didn't want to be put in a nursing home. I always assumed I would die young, far too young to even consider old age. But here I am. And now I wish I had told them, because I hate this place. It's hard to hate, now. It takes so much energy, and I am tired all the time. The hate is even fading to dislike, and then complacency. I never wanted to die complacent. I wanted to die fast. In a battle. Not like this._

_But the doctors tell me it's head trauma. Quite a lot of it, actually. They say I should have been dead a long time ago. I don't have long; and if you consider the Alzheimer's that grows worse everyday, I have even less time. When I finally loose all my memories, then I'm not me. I'm not really Buffy anymore. _

_I'm just a shell. _

_Your name is fading fast. Sometimes I forget it. I don't think you're real. They tell me you aren't real, that you never were and that I just need to lie down and rest. And I confess I believe them, sometimes. I am a crazy old woman. _

_But even if you are a figment of my imagination, it hurts. It hurts to lose you, to have lost you so long ago and still be losing you today, in my final hours. _

_I'm probably an idiot. You couldn't possibly be real. Your chocolate eyes are a little TOO easy to get lost in. The silk of your skin against mine unnaturally smooth. It's hallucinations. It has to be. This story I am striving to remember is far too crazy._

_But I want it to be real. Otherwise, all this hurt, all this pain and longing is for nothing. For someone that never existed. _

_I don't even know if you're real. This might be the letter of a crazy old lady, writing to a figment of her degrading memory. _

_But if you're real, if you're really real, I loved you. I really, really loved you._

_And even if you're not real, I still love you. _

_I remember Riley, very vaguely. He was real. I remember Spike, too. He was pretty. So pretty. If you ever see him again, tell him I loved him. Not like I loved you, but he did good. _

_But perhaps...perhaps Spike was just a hallucination too._

_I didn't love Riley. I loved you. I know I did. And Spike. Everyone I love leaves me. You left me._

_Or were you just never here? _

_I don't know._

_But if I remember right, you were magnificent. I liked the way you held me close, and you always kept me warm even though your body was cold. I don't remember what you looked like exactly anymore. All I remember is dark. That's it. Not facial expressions, no real colors; just dark. But when I have my moments, when I am a little more lucid, I think that you were the most regal thing I had ever seen._

_I hope you're real. I'm sorry I can't remember. If you're real than you remember picture perfect. I'm sorry I never did whatever it was I meant to do._

_But I still love you._

_Even if you're a fucking disillusion, I love you, because for a hallucination, you sure are perfect._

_I'm just sorry._

_But I love you. _

_I'm forgetting fast. They say I have a couple days left, at most. I don't even know if I'll remember you at all when the time comes. If I forget, if you're real, that is, will you remember for the both of us? If you're real, I don't want to forget you. You have to remember for me. _

_-Buffy'_

Crows feet crinkle in the corners of my eyes as I smile to hold back the tears. I don't really know why I even try to hide them. He knows me too well for that old trick now; he knows all my weaknesses. I look at the shaky hand one last time, trying to memorize the pattern in my mind.

He's standing next to me, and he thinks he's doing a good job of hiding it. Of being all stoic and badass. But he's not. I trail one of my arms out, slip it around him and slide my hand down into his back pocket while we read Buffy's last letter to us together.

He's mine. I've been around longer. I know him, insides and outsides. It's hurting him just as much as it's hurting me. He's annoyed that I'm touching him right now but he needs it more than he cares to think about. Maybe more, because she never loved him quite the same.

I feel sort of bad for him. I'm not that much older by this worlds standards, but I secretly count hell as part of my existence. So technically, I'm a few hundred years older than him. I've seen more; done more. Felt more. In some ways, Spike is still a child. He'll always be mine, my grand-childe, but he's emotionally immature still, compared to me. I know that extra tic in his lip, the tenseness to his stance. He's taking it badly. I know he is. I want to pull him closer, to push him down and wrap him up and tell him he'll be okay- tell him that it doesn't stop hurting but it does get better. I want to kiss the as yet unshed tears off his chiseled cheeks.

But I won't, because he needs his space.

"Here Spike." I carefully hand him the paper, and he handles it more carefully than he ever handled any of Dru's things. It's precious to him, so very precious. "Keep it." Spike gives me his look and very pointedly turns his back, my fingers easily sliding out of his pocket. I won't try to push it; he's grieving, in his own way. He loved Buffy, too. Spike needs that paper. It's all he has left of her.

But I don't need it. Just as Spike is mine, Buffy was mine too. She'll always be mine. I don't need a paper to remember her by. I carry memories, now, memories for the both of us, just like she asked. Spike needs something tangible to hold tightly to. I need only what I carry on the inside. My memories with Buffy. If there is one advantage to being a Vampire, it's our flawless, photographic memory. And it goes beyond a human's memory. I remember the smells, the sounds, the textures under my finger tips in vivid detail.

When Buffy died, she died moaning my name, which she finally remembered. Yet I doubt she really remembered who I was, she was so far gone by then. It was just nerves, firing in her brain and triggering random, dormant memories. She wasn't Buffy, when she died.

Buffy was special. She was one-of-a-kind. She never went by the book; she saved more people and lived longer than any Slayer ever had. She also did something else no Slayer, has ever done before. She loved a Vampire. Two, actually. I love Buffy. I will always love Buffy. I don't miss her as bad as I thought I would; when I would watch her in the home, from a distance, she wasn't really the same. Her spunk, the fire that made her _Buffy,_ was fading. Our Buffy died a long time ago. Our special, wonderful Buffy.

But she's at peace now. –Spike told me what she told him when she came back from the dead the second time, about being in heaven- She doesn't have to think, or try to remember anymore, because I'll never forget.

Spike won't either. And we'll be together, for the rest of eternity. Buffy would laugh if she saw us now. We never got along. And now look at us together. Some might say it was inevitable; but it wasn't. I would have staked Spike a long time ago if it weren't for Buffy. And I thank the Powers that Be for that, because living an eternity with Spike, even if he is a pain in the ass at times, is far better than living it alone. And we can trade memories of Buffy. Remember her in her prime.

We'll never forget.


End file.
